UK Overtime Pay Calculator

Overtime pay is not always straightforward to work out, particularly once you factor in different rates for extra hours. This calculator works out your standard pay, overtime pay at time and a half, double time or a custom rate, and your total pay for the week, plus what that adds up to across a full year.

How to use the overtime pay calculator

Enter your base hourly rate, your standard contracted hours for the week, and how many overtime hours you have worked or expect to work. Choose a preset overtime rate, such as time and a quarter, time and a half or double time, or enter a custom multiplier if your employer uses a different rate. The calculator instantly shows your standard pay, overtime pay, total weekly pay and your effective hourly rate blending both.

How the calculation works

Standard pay is simply your base hourly rate multiplied by your standard hours. Your overtime hourly rate is your base rate multiplied by the overtime multiplier you choose, and overtime pay is that rate multiplied by your overtime hours. Adding standard pay and overtime pay together gives your total pay for the week. The effective hourly rate divides this total by your total hours worked, showing what you are earning on average across every hour, standard and overtime combined.

Worked example

Take someone on a base rate of £14.50 an hour, working 37.5 standard hours plus 6 hours of overtime at time and a half. Standard pay is £14.50 × 37.5 = £543.75. The overtime rate is £14.50 × 1.5 = £21.75 an hour, so overtime pay is £21.75 × 6 = £130.50. Total pay for the week is £674.25 across 43.5 hours, an effective hourly rate of £15.50. If this pattern continued every week of the year, that would work out at around £35,061 a year in total pay, made up of £28,275 in standard pay and £6,786 in overtime.

Common mistakes to avoid

A common mistake is assuming overtime is automatically paid at a premium rate. Unless it is written into your contract or agreed with your employer, there is no automatic legal right to an enhanced overtime rate, only to your total pay averaging out to at least the legal minimum wage across the hours worked.

Another mistake is forgetting that overtime pay is taxed the same as any other earnings, so a particularly heavy overtime week can look larger on your payslip before tax than the amount that actually lands in your bank account. It is also easy to lose track of overtime hours worked informally, such as staying late without clocking it, which can make it harder to check your pay is correct later.

Related calculators

Check your effective hourly rate against the legal minimum using our minimum wage calculator, or convert between an annual salary and an hourly rate with our salary to hourly rate calculator. To see what your overtime pay looks like after tax and National Insurance, use our take-home pay calculator, and if you are due a pay review, our salary negotiation calculator can help you see the real value of an offer. Our guide to working out your true hourly rate is also useful if you are comparing employed and self-employed pay. To work out your total hours from a start and end time before applying any of these rates, try our time duration calculator.